Glieuaeiel's DJ

Never Tickle a Sleeping Polar Bear (7:12)

Two people somehow anger a polar bear. It starts chasing them and they run all the way to the other side of town and into a building, where someone uses a phone to call for help. Help is slow to arrive, though, and meanwhile, we're all watching some kind of live feed that shows us where the polar bear is. It will reach the building in a matter of moments. Now, looking out the window, I can see it running down the street. And still no sign of help.

The bear comes inside, and I know it will kill people one at a time until help finally arrives to stop it. Seeing as those two idiots were the ones to anger it in the first place, I think it's appropriate that they should be the first victims. We push one of them into a pool as a sacrifice. The polar bear paces on the edge for a moment, then dives in after the sinking person. I don't watch, but a friend comes up and tells me, "Well, I saw it." I can imagine how gruesome it must have been. I realize that now I will probably start having nightmares about polar bears attacking me.

Rock Concert Setup (10:40)

I've agreed to help an old high school friend set up for tonight's rock concert. I'm just really curious about how all of this works. One of the first things we do is unwind a lot of extension cord around some concrete poles set up around the edges of the pavilion. We go around the outside about a dozen times. Then a big truck dumps some stuff in the middle of the room and start threading a bunch more cords every which way. Meanwhile, I keep asking a bunch of questions about /why/ we're setting things up in certain ways, and it's clear that my friend is getting kind of exasperated. He just wants to get the job done. And apparently I'm messing some stuff up: he tells me that I'm not supposed to run the cord right along the concrete bricks; they're not supposed to touch at all. I'm about to ask him why, but then I see the unhappy expression on his face as he waits for the inevitable question, and I decide I'd better give him a break. He thanks me for it, and I set about moving all of the concrete bricks.

Later, his dad comes in, and my friend says something to him that I don't understand. In fact, I'm not even sure if it was English. I look more closely at the pair of them. My friend keeps bowing and saying what sounds like formalisms in a language I don't understand. He's acting very, very respectfully towards his dad. I seem to remember hearing back near the end of high school that he did something very embarrassing; maybe the punishment for that is causing this behavior now.

Politeness (6:55)

I'm sitting at a table with my dad while Mom does something nearby. Dad is ostensibly talking to her, but he's talking about the one time he and I went to get a pumpkin milkshake together while on a road trip. [IRL: this has never happened, but I did have my first pumpkin milkshake a couple weeks ago.] Apparently it was one of the few times in his life where I wasn't rude to him. I was being nice to him. I think it's creepy that he's reminiscing so much about it, especially when I goes on to say the state in which it happened--no context or anything, just "Indiana." I don't really know how to explain to him that I think he's being creepy, so I decide just to be rude and hope he gets the message. I tell him to stop, and when he asks why, I just get up to move to a different room. Obviously, he thinks this is immature behavior on my part--being rude just because he's accusing me of being nice sometimes--but it's a fair enough price to pay if it means he'll stop trying to have conversations like that one.

Tenacious Moth (6:55)

I'm sitting outside at the picnic table when a moth flies at my head. Frantically, I swipe my hands through my hair, trying to get it out, but it won't leave. It doesn't seem to have a healthy fear of being crushed. I suspect it has a romantic attachment to me, or at least to some other person who often sits out here at this picnic table. But the sensation of moth's wings in my hair is really disturbing, and eventually I swipe so much that I jolt myself awake. A few minutes later, my alarm goes off.

Meanwhile, in High School (6:59)

I'm sitting at a table in a room filled with tables, working on an assignment, when I see someone out of the corner of my eye. It's my mom, sitting at another table, trying to catch my attention by waving something. Exasperated, I acknowledge her, but she wants to start a full blown conversation. I pack up my things and say, apologetically, that "I just can't right now." Predictably, Mom gets furious. I walk over to her table (Dad's there too) and try to explain that I'm old enough now that she can't expect me to share every detail of my life with her. My voice sounds like maybe I'm about to start crying. Nothing doing, though. Looks like I'll have to pack my own lunch and find my own way to school, today.

I go back downstairs and check the time. It's later than I thought! Forget packing a lunch, I'll barely have time to shower and get dressed. I also think I should do my laundry, but when I look into the basket, I realize that I have more clean clothes than I thought. No need to bother, then. But later, when I actually go to choose an outfit, I have trouble finding clean shorts. I'll have to do my laundry tomorrow, which will be harder since it's a weekday and I'll be busy.

Dad drives me to school. I'm sitting all the way in the back of the car, and I'm surprised to see some orange traffic cones passing by my window. Some road work near the left turn just before the high school's parking lot. Looks like Dad's doing what he's supposed to be doing.

I take a seat in the classroom. I've decided that while I'm back home, I may as well sit in on some Spanish classes at my old high school to get in some extra practice. The teacher, a dark-haired man, begins the class by introducing himself and explaining about the course textbooks. Apparently he wrote one of them--part of a series of textbooks on a variety of subjects, all published in the same format but written by various guest authors. At one point, the teacher switches to English for a bit. His accent is kind of cute. Then we go around the class and introduce ourselves. I don't know anyone there, obviously. When it comes to be my turn, I explain that I'm actually a college student. There's something of a commotion from another student in the class, and I wonder if maybe he's doing the same thing as I am and I should have recognized him? That would be embarrassing.

At one point, the teacher's been talking about something, and he asks the class which of us consider ourselves to be "a member of that crowd?" I'm one of the few who raises a hand. A few minutes later, I realize that he might have been asking which of us have had sex, but with so much circumlocution that I didn't realize it at the time. Oops. Well, if so, I'm sorry for misrepresenting myself, but there's not much I can do about it now. Besides, I'm in college, they'll have expected it of me, anyway.

The teacher starts a presentation, and everyone puts away their drinks. Except one is still on the table, and one of the students accidentally knocks it over, spilling soda pop everywhere. The teacher interrupts his lecture to go find cleaning supplies, and I try to help out by mopping up some with a napkin. I hope that my helpfulness is a mark of being more mature than the majority of students in the classroom. But the teacher holds out his hand to throw away the napkin for me, and I let him take it, even though it sort of undermines what I was doing. Anyway, the napkin wasn't very absorbent, so now there's pop on my hands. I need to find a sink. I find one in the hall only a few feet away from the classroom.

A lot of the students are handing out out here until the presentation starts again. I look around and see an office whose name plaque carries a very strange title. I wonder if high schools can hire people to do things as strange as that because they're government-funded. Someone walks past me and into the office, and I wonder. I also talk to one of the students outside. They tell me they wanted to go to the big concert today, because it featured a big presentation about Mormonism. I had heard about the concert, but I didn't know it was about Mormonism, and now I'm kind of sad I missed it, too. [IRL: The concert is this afternoon, and it has nothing to do with Mormonism.]

When we go back into the classroom, there's a stage at one end, complete with curtains and a podium. A man at the podium tells us that as a surprise, Mitt Romney has come with his campaign team to give a presentation. After this introduction, a few people walk out on stage. I'm not sure which one is Romney [although IRL obvs I know what he looks like], and the introduction kind of trailed off, so it's not surprising that the applause is slow to start. It's also very quiet, and peters out quickly. One of the campaign people says "Wow," loudly and sarcastically. Well, I'm not sure what Romney expected. We're mostly Democrats here at my university.

They launch into the presentation, which is an animated, rhetorical speech delivered while the campaigners circle and crisscross the room, making sure to invite each audience member personally to agree with what they're saying. It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. Somewhere, I've found a pillow, and I clutch it to my stomach like it's some kind of security blanket. I stare at the floor, only half listening. I feel like I've read this argument before, somewhere, anyway. Something about how the Democrats are trying to convince you not to vote Republican because of what the Republicans /won't/ do, but when election day comes, you need to vote based on what /will/ happen. And so on. One of the campaigners notices my aloofness, so he gets up in my face and tries to engage me by giving me a manly punch on the shoulder. I look at him expressionlessly and say in a carefully controlled voice, "Please don't do that again." The man puts on a mock-surprised face and looks around at people nearby as if to invite them to start bullying me, but in the end he just leaves.

From behind, a woman crooks an elbow around my neck and good-naturedly shakes me a bit. Addressing herself to someone I can't see, she asks, "Is this called 'egging?'" (as in, "egging someone on"). Ah, so she's playfully imitating the campaigner. The person says yes, it is, so she laughs and releases her hold on my neck. Pressing herself against my side, she murmurs, "There's someone touching you right now, and you don't seem to mind." Bemused, I try to think of a socially proper way to respond that it's okay because she's a woman. But before I can, she lets go of me, and I can finally turn to get a good look at her. To my delight, I definitely recognize her from somewhere. While I'm snapping my fingers and trying to place where that was, she just introduces herself again as [XXXX]. Surprised, I tell her I remember her as a campaign assistant for [XXXX]. She laughs and says no, then dances off to the other side of the room with another girl. I'm reminded of the friendship between Meekakitty and Nanalew. Suddenly, the dream ends, and I wake up. For a moment, I think that it's only been about two and a half hours since I fell asleep. But that must have been a FA, because it was more like six and a half.

Supermarket (8:15) (LUCID)

I'm in a supermarket, and at some level I'm aware that this is a dream. As I walk through the crowded checkout lanes, I look closely at all of the faces that I pass. Each one is unique and distinctive and interesting, and I wonder whether they all come from people I passed on the street in waking life. I read somewhere on a forum that that's where they come from. The dream seems pretty stable, but I feel compelled to keep moving, or else it will fall apart. I walk up to a cashier and ask her for the credit card that a customer just gave to her. "Sure, one moment," she says, and then she hands me something, but it's not a credit card. I leave the checkout lanes and continue through the store. It crosses my mind that this counts as a lucid dream. Cool; I haven't had one of those in a while.

I decide to call Mom on my cell phone. I worry that maybe I'm actually sleep-calling her in waking life, too, so I try to think of conversation topics that wouldn't sound too bizarre. Meanwhile, I'm still walking quickly down one side of the store, looking around at everything. The store's wide entrance is coming up on my left. I can't think of anything else to talk about, and Mom seems more confused than anything, so I just say goodbye to her and hang up. I leave the store.

Somebody's angry at me for turning out into the road in front of him, but I'm sure I wouldn't have done it close enough that you would actually call it "cutting him off." I decide to play out the scenario to see what actually happened. I get in the car and start driving toward the hilltop road that passes near the supermarket's parking lot. Indeed, there's almost a solid line of cars coming that direction, with one little space in the middle that perhaps I could grab if I timed it right. But there's something strange about the road configuration that makes me think I wouldn't be able to accelerate quickly enough to avoid pissing someone off. Okay, better to avoid that.

I stop the car and get out. There's a mid-sized lake to the right of the road with a big yacht anchored near the shore. A bunch of sailors are walking around over there, presumably on shore leave. I start walking along the narrow path between the lake and the side of the supermarket, going over to see what's going on. But then one of the sailors starts walking along the path toward me, shouting something about me not being allowed to come this way. An irritating fellow, but only doing his job, I suppose.

I keep walking, but suddenly I need to poop. I remember how in the past this has always made me panic and wake up, only to find that I didn't have to use the bathroom at all. Well, I know better, now, so I'll just go to the bathroom in the dream. I squat in the middle of a grassy lawn and start doing my business. The sailor is still walking towards me and shouting, so I interrupt him to warn him that even though I've avoided behaving "beaverishly," if he keeps it up, I may have to. (Apparently, in this situation, "behaving beaverishly" means that I'll strip totally naked just to annoy him even more.) Going to the bathroom is taking a long time. Some of the sailors are running close nearby. I hope for their sake that they don't accidentally step in any of the poop. The sailor still won't leave me alone, so I carry out my threat by pulling my T-shirt over my head. This makes my vision go completely black. Oh, darn.

I wake up to a confusion of covers. After a moment, I figure out that somehow I've come into a squatting position. Uh oh. Looking down, I see that my worst fears have come true--there's quite a bit of poop on my covers. Despairingly, I try to wrap up some of it using the sheets, but it's not enough. This will be hard to deal with. Then it occurs to me that there's something distinctly nightmarish about this situation, and I tell myself exasperatedly, "Come on, wake up for real." And I do. [No, I never did have to go to the bathroom. Why my dreams always do this to me, I don't know.]

Pop Quiz (9:42) (LUCID)

A smart math major I know is pacing the front of a classroom. He's quizzing me about details from my previous dreams tonight. I know I definitely missed a few when I wrote them in my dream journal, so this will be a perfect opportunity to recover them--my unconscious itself is telling me what they were! He mentions something about a homework assignment, and a few different people named Erik. [Ironically, I can't remember the details of these details.] It occurs to me to wonder if he's even telling the truth. I have no recollection of the events of which he speaks, so he could easily be inventing them, and I'd never know. Still, I wake up and write them in my dream journal. Only, it was a FA, and when I actually wake up, I can't really remember them any more.

Snap (LUCID)

[Finally! Woop woop! Only, I'm pretty uncertain on the chronology for some parts. You'll see.]

While at a traveling carnival, I run into my sister with a group of her friends. They're discussing what they should go do next, since recently a bunch of extra people joined their group and now there are maybe too many people for them to travel together. As a joke, I walk up and join, pretending I don't know that I'm exacerbating the problem. Suddenly, I notice that there's a younger girl in the group who keeps shouting for everyone to shut up. She must think that if everyone quiets down, then the discussion will go more smoothly. From the perspective of the wisdom of years, I realize that she's not going about this the right way. I walk up to her and encourage her to quiet down and be more mature. She stares at me as if suddenly realizing how annoying her behavior was, and then she sincerely thanks me for my intervention. To the group, I point out that we can just split into two groups and meet up again later.

Later, I ride a roller coaster. All you do to get on board is to grab a horizontal bar that's connected to the track above you. It's a very scary ride, because the only things preventing you from falling to great injury or death are your grip strength and your arm strength. As the coaster starts moving, I start to fear for my life. I try to secure my grip by looping an elbow over the bar, but it's difficult to adjust your grip safely while the ride is in motion. The coaster rounds a corner and heads down a downward slope, gathering speed. I see that at the bottom, the track turns sharply to the left. "Oh no," I moan, praying that I can withstand the G forces. Somehow I do, and shortly afterward, the ground rises beneath me and the coaster slows so that I can get off.

Of course, doing so is almost as hard as getting off of a ski lift, so in the process, I drop my notebook and pencil. I try to go back to grab them, but I almost get hit by the next car. I'm forced to dive to the side and seize another car going up the hill. Then I realize that I've switched tracks, and I'm about to go all the way around the ride again. First, I'm confused as to why they would design the ride to make this possible. Second, I'm worried that they'll be mad at me for going around the ride again without paying a second time. Third, I realize that the much more pressing concern is that now the ride has a second chance to kill me.

At some point later, I'm discussing lucid dreaming with someone, and I decide to do a reality check by plugging my nose and breathing in. To my delight, it works! Next thing I know, I'm standing in my childhood bedroom. [Maybe I had a false awakening?] I do the same RC again, and it works again. But I'm not totally convinced, so I do it one more time, making sure that I've totally plugged my nose and there's no way that air should be able to get through. It still works.

Awesome! Time to get to work. I remember that I have dream goals, but, nevertheless, the first thing that occurs to me is that I should look for a naked woman. I'm alone in my room, but maybe I can conjure one into my closet (which is currently closed). I decide that the first thing to do is to turn on the lights in there. I'll be able to see if I've succeeded by looking at the gap beneath the door. There's a faint light coming from it right now, so I snap my fingers to try and turn it on all the way. It flickers a bit, then goes out completely. Lol. Maybe I should try to work on some dream control, first.

I'm glad that this dream seems to be easy to maintain. I figure that's probably because it takes place in a very familiar location; namely, my own house.

At some point, I decide to dive through a big glass window on the second story. As I'm banging it with my arm, testing its strength, it occurs to me that this would be very dangerous in the case that I actually am awake. I do another RC, just to be safe.

At another point, I open my closet door to discover that my parents have been storing a lot of creepy presents in there. I mean, all I can see are boxes and bags, but it still creeps me out.

At another point, I decide that I might as well actually do one of my dream goals: "feel my heartbeat." I press two fingers of my right hand against the artery in the side of my neck. Surprisingly, my pulse is very strong and rather rapid. It even seems to be accelerating slightly. I guess that fits, since I feel like I'm high on adrenaline.

At another point, I'm in the downstairs hallway when my mom calls everyone to dinner. Obviously, I'd rather keep working on dream control than go sit down with them. I know my dad's probably going to try to find me and insist that I come. But I also hope that since I'm dreaming, I can just sort of will him not to pay attention to me. I see him come out of a door at the end of the hallway and start walking towards me--and I'm very relieved when he walks by without even looking in my direction.

At another point, I'm practicing dream control in living room. The idea is this: every time I snap, I want it to be followed a moment later by a sharp crack and a small flare of light located wherever it is that I've directed my attention. It's like using those little firecrackers that you're supposed to throw against the ground. Anyway, the first time I try, I fail. I'm disappointed and worried that I'll never be able to do it. But I remind myself that all of this is imaginary: it's happening in my own mind, so I should have complete control over it. I try again. It works! I repeat it a few times, and then I notice that sometimes the little flash of light can affect its nearby surroundings, a little bit. I try to do this on purpose by directing my attention at a button which is hanging loose from the side of a cushion. When I snap, the flash of light breaks the thread, and the button rolls across the floor. Neat!

While I'm practicing, I notice that our dog is behaving strangely. She jumps up on a couch, then climbs some other furniture in order to jump onto a light that hangs by a chain from the ceiling. She climbs up the chain and touches her nose to the ceiling. A dog's paws should never have been able to achieve that, but I figure that since this is a dream, she may as well be able to do anything she wants to do.

Later, I consider stopping to review what I've done so far, to solidify it in my memory for easier dream recall. But, nah. Much more fun to keep trying to do new stuff.

I decide that the next thing to try would be snapping my fingers and having a little flame appear above them. I go into the family room, where I find a convenient bunch of lit candles. I sit in the couch. My hand has become wrapped in protective oily cloth, and I light a couple of fingers by sticking them into a candle flame. I contemplate this for a bit, then blow them out. Except I don't quite succeed, and the fire flares up again. I blow harder, and this time it goes out completely. I feel silly for working that hard to accomplish something so simple. For instance, there is a friendly dog in the room who would gladly put out the fire for me if I were to stick my hand in its mouth. I guess the saliva just put me off.

A few moments later, I realize that I haven't thought about anything for a few moments, and everything's gone black. I try to shout "Clarity!" but there's nothing to clarify. I open my eyes upon my new bedroom, then do an RC to make sure I'm awake. When I check the time, I'm surprised to find I've only been asleep for a couple of hours.

Evil Statue

The ceremony to release a powerful evil spirit on the world is scheduled to begin in a few hours. It'll take place at a museum. Unfortunately, the statue of the evil spirit has long been missing from the building, so we have no idea what exactly we'll be facing. Now, usually I would procrastinate, which is to say I would start setting up to face the spirit only a couple of minutes before its scheduled release. But this time, I call together the team and try to get us started with a few hours to spare. We hide out in the parking lot under an overturned rowboat. Every so often, an evil black dog comes along to snap at us through the gaps in the side, and we have to stab it to death. Those jaws look very dangerous, and I'm not really confident in my abilities. Especially when half the team is out scouting and I have to face the dogs with only about one other person.

Scare Game

Evil creatures are loose on the world. I'm headed to the basement, but I'm worried they might be waiting for me down there. There are rules about when and where they can attack you, but I don't remember them exactly. Mom happens to be in the living room with me, so I ask her. She says yes, they're allowed to attack at this time. I also check a rules handbook, and it says there are actually no limitations on when you can be attacked. Huh. It must have been that they don't like sunlight, so you're usually safe during the day. Anyway, I decide to go to the basement. I'll just be very careful.

When I'm about two steps into the room down there, a hand comes flying around a corner to try and grab me. I intercept it with my own arm and wrestle with it for a bit until my dad gives up and comes around the corner, laughing. He'd been trying to scare me, because in this game you get points for that.

Water Damage

It's time for my lesson to start! The instructor and the one other student are already swimming out from the shore. I hurry after them, but then I realize that I'm still carrying the 600-page novel I've been reading. Water damage! I panic and get out of the water, extremely grateful that the covers of the book are laminated. Only the first quarter inch of pages seems to be wet. I don't know how many pages that is, but I sit down and start peeling them apart one at a time, blowing on each of them, for all the good that will do. This is a library book, and I have to save it, and my lesson can wait. By looking at page numbers, I notice that sometimes the pages are stuck together so closely that I flip three of them at a time without realizing it. That just goes to show how dangerous water damage is.

Despair

For the last week or so of class, the instructor is alternating days between individual work and group rehearsal. There's one piece that we'll all play together as an orchestra, but all the other ones we must each prepare on our own. Today's for individual work. I feel like I've been pretty productive so far, but I'm still worried that I only have half an hour of class time left. My project doesn't feel close to finished.

I get an unexpected call on my cell phone, so I walk over near the doors to the auditorium while I answer. It's a young boy, I'd guess about thirteen or fourteen years old, and I can't quite figure out what he wants. He says something about a ScanTron, and he seems to be asking my permission for something. He's not very coherent, and whenever I ask him a question, there're about five seconds of silence on the line before he answers. Other people in the auditorium are staring at me like I'm being rude, so I leave to go pace around the hallway instead.

Eventually this boy says, "Your answers were very helpful," and with a shock I realize what he must be talking about. Not long ago I took a short quiz for this class, and I turned in my ScanTron by dropping it into a slotted box in the room. This kid must have taken out my ScanTron and copied my answers when he went in to take the test, and then his parents found out about it, and now they're making him call me. I hadn't realized that the test I took--questions from the 11th grade ACT--used the same set of questions as the actual ACT for eleventh graders this year. This is not a good situation. But I don't see that there's anything I can really do about it at this point, so I don't react strongly one way or another.

Another voice comes on the line. It's an older man, probably the boy's father. "You've been surprisingly nice to my son," he says.

"Nice?" I ask.

"Yes. We were worried you might press charges for theft."

Theft? Wait, did this kid actually steal my ScanTron without putting it back in the box? That would be bad news; that test is a significant portion of my grade for this class. I ask the boy if he put my test back. He doesn't seem to understand the question. I sometimes hear an indistinct voice in the background, as if his dad is coaching him about what to say. I try asking him other questions, but he has trouble with all of them. Eventually I back up and ask if he's even in eleventh grade. That, at least, he answers in the affirmative, though he doesn't enunciate very clearly. He eventually says something that reassures me that my test is still safely turned in. That was all I wanted to know, and I'm fed up with this horrendously ineffective conversation. But I don't like this kid, so before I hang up, I give him an angry, rapid-fire lecture about everything he's done wrong. I tell him to answer more quickly when people ask questions over the phone, and I tell him never, EVER to take anything out of boxes with slots on top. I also threaten to come after him if there are any problems with my grade on that test. I hang up without waiting for him to answer (though I wonder if maybe I spoke too quickly for the slow-minded fellow to understand anything), and I go back into the auditorium.

Another student is just finishing giving his presentation (a slide show about something from physics), and people are packing up to leave. Crap. The instructor must have asked for volunteers, since presentations weren't supposed to start for another day or two. That this guy was already prepared makes me feel even worse about my own project.

A friend of the presenter's drops some review worksheets on the seats at the back of the room, near the exit. I grab one on my way to get my things, even though my chances of being able to do the worksheet without having heard the presentation are very low.

When I try to put the worksheet into my backpack, I knock a hose loose from a glass jar, and the hose starts filling my backpack with water. I'd stuck the hose in the jar earlier because I couldn't figure out how to turn off the water. And now it's ruining everything in my bag, taking my progress on the project from "very little" to "absolutely nothing."

It's too much. Maybe I should try to turn off the water or control the damage but it's too much. I give up. I seize one of my juggling balls, hurl it across the room, collapse tumultuously into a chair, and start sobbing. Some of the nearby students are looking at me; others are trying to ignore me. I see people throwing my juggling ball around the room. At my feet, the water coming from the hose thins to a trickle, then stops, and I know the instructor has shut off the water supply. Moments later, he comes to look at me from the next row forward, frowning.

"I've seen a lot of reactions like this in the past few days," he says.

It didn't work, I realize. Despite my complete breakdown, he's refusing to show me any extra sympathy. What an unfeeling world this is.

My dad comes to drive me home. Suddenly I realize that, in my distraction, I've forgotten to put on my seat belt, and my dad is careening straight towards some cars stopped at a light. With my free hand, I seize the strap and pull it across my body, hoping that holding it in place will be useful even if I haven't managed to fasten the buckle. Dad swerves out of the way, narrowly avoiding an accident, and explains that he was trying to do a live performance arrangement of "Jingle Bells" using sounds that a car makes. Shaken and annoyed, I tell him irritably that that was a really bad idea. He seems to think it's my fault, though, since I was humming the tune earlier.

Back in my room, I decide to do something really simple to convince myself that I'm not a complete failure at life: I put on my glasses. But the glasses don't work. I can't make the world come into focus. I can't even do that. I try reviewing some German instead. I stare at the word "ssssssssut" for a time, but it doesn't make any sense even though I know it should. At this point, basically the only emotion I'm feeling is despair.

Fitness with Laci

Just when I think Laci's video is over, a bonus clip starts, showing her trying out a cardio fitness class. For example, one of the exercises is something like the following: Start from a standing position with your legs fairly wide apart. Then crouch into a lunge position facing your right side while bringing your right elbow across your body to touch the ground on the left side of your right foot. Then on the next beat, straighten up again. The tempo is quite fast, so I discover to my surprise that it's actually quite a difficult workout. I also discover upon closer examination of my form that I'm not quite doing the step right. Oops. Meanwhile, Laci is laughing about how exhausting the workout is, and after a few short clips showcasing different steps, the video ends on a joking note as she accidentally drops one of the weights that the class is using to work out.

3-D Go

My parents and I run into two girls about my age and their mothers. They're all new to Go so we decide to try a team game. For one of the girls, this will be her very first game, or thereabouts. One of the mothers, an Asian one, shows us the board she brought. It looks to me like it has more than 19 rows, so I try to count them. The count comes up fine, so I guess my visual estimation skills are just a bit off. Anyway, we start playing the game using colored Legos on one of those green base plates. My team is white, and the adults are playing red. The newbie girl keeps trying to play in the upper left, but it becomes clear after a few moves that Red is setting up a very strong framework in that area.

"Stop that!" I say, the next time she tries to play in that area. I feel a bad about snapping, so I try to recover by turning it into a teaching moment. I explain about frameworks. I'm not sure she entirely gets it, but she doesn't argue, or anything.

Once, she moves one of her previously placed pieces before putting down a new one. At first I assume she's just tacitly taking back her previous move, and I don't say anything, though it makes me uncomfortable. But later I wonder if she just didn't know that in Go you can't move pieces once they've been placed on the board.

At times during the course of the game, I turn back to the board to find that a more or less intricate Lego construction has appeared in the middle of it. For example, once, a rectangular green tower of about twenty (Lego) stories appears. Someone tries to take it by removing the last liberty at its base, but I point out that they should have to remove all the liberties for every story and the top, since really it's all just one big group. But then the second girl, the more experienced one, points out that that's not usually what you need to do for one-story groups. For those, you just need to take the liberties on the sides. I realize she's right.

At other times, cutesie farmhouses or tessellated color patterns appear. These are clearly the work of the newbie, and they're interfering with the game. I don't think she understands the point of Go at all. Eventually I get fed up and declare, "I give up on this game." I sweep my pieces into a bag and stalk upstairs. Maybe they'll try to continue without me, but in any case it's good riddance.

Upstairs, I dump out my pieces and try to sort them by color. It's going to take a while, because there are several biggish structures that use a lot of different colors in alternation.

At one point, I notice that I can make some cool percussion sounds with the Legos, so I do some one-man-band improv using the Legos, my voice, and any other noisemakers I can find. I think it turns out to be pretty neat. It's not exploring any new territory, musically, but it's got a pretty nice groove. The only person watching is my Mom, doing something in the kitchen, but she doesn't say anything.

[I must have woken up after just about every REM cycle last night. Not sure how I pulled that one off.]

Soiree

Some of my cousins arrive for a function my family is hosting. They brought cupcakes--chocolate and one other flavor. They ask which flavor I prefer, because somehow the arrangement of cupcakes in the baking tin will reflect the seating chart for the event. I reply, "Probably chocolate."

I've agreed to contribute to the evening's entertainment by playing a short (two page) piano solo by Gershwin. I know I haven't played piano in ages, but everything on those two pages looked sightreadable when I glanced over it a while ago. However, when Dad discovers my plan, inexplicably he freaks out. I guess he's really concerned that I'll embarrass myself in front of the relatives. It's annoying, though. In fact, Dad's been annoying me a lot lately. For instance, he's recently gotten it into his head that he should learn to play piano himself, and he expects me to sit down with him to prepare piano duets. That does not sound like fun at all.

The previous group finishes performing, and now it's my turn. I figure the crowd is busy socializing, and they won't mind if I take a minute to look at some of the tougher chords. But to my horror, I open the music and discover a third page. What I thought was the end of the music is just a thin double bar! The third page isn't unplayable, but it has a lot of fast arpeggios over several octaves which will be very, very difficult to sightread. I probably should have taken a closer look at this. I start to feel uncomfortable about the amount of time I've delayed, now; the audience is probably getting impatient.

John Green the Sponsor

I've just finished TAing for today for a two-week class for math teachers in primary education. I and the teacher for the class spend a few moments calculating in percentages how close we are to finishing the class. It's towards the end of the second week.

It's dark outside as I walk through the quadrangles on my way home. On the way, I pass someone who looks exactly like John Green! I didn't know he was in Chicago! But I pass him without getting the courage to ask for an autograph. Mere steps later I consider turning around to chase after him, but I don't.

Inside a building, I run into one of my students from a previous summer math program. We talk for a bit, but we both have to be getting somewhere, so he leads the way out of the building. The building's door is rather heavy, and I feel bad that he tries to hold it for me. The pathway outside is narrow. I follow it into a smallish quad that's packed with people. I learn that it's called "Jones Quad," and it's a popular after-hours gathering place for students. I also know that I've been this way before. A girl from my house waves at me from inside a pack of her friends. I wave back--rather saucily, to my own surprise (namely, by lifting my left hand and repeatedly bending and unbending the last two knuckles of each finger simultaneously). Someone else waves at me, but I don't recognize her, and she makes a disappointed grimace. I run into someone else from my house and we remark upon how many housemates seem to be on campus tonight, despite the fact that it's the middle of summer.

It occurs to me that the John Green I saw might just have been a very close look-alike to the famed vlogbrother. I decide that I should go find him again and look more closely. As I wander around, something weird happens with the lights and the music in the building, and I guess that must mean it's about to close down for the night. No one seems in a hurry to leave, though. When I come back a few minutes later, everyone's still there, though they leave soon thereafter.

Back outside, I walk around a street corner and see a pizza place across the street. On a screen above the building, an advertisement plays. It's this same John Green guy. He's basically sponsoring the pizza place. I guess the pizza company must have heard about the Pizza John shirt and decided to capitalize on it. I still can't decide if the guy is actually John Green, though. It seems unlikely that he would do something so commercial.

Locker Checkout

It's the Saturday after finals week, and I'm trying to do my last bit of packing before going home. I've been storing some stuff in a locker on campus, so I head over to the building to pick it up. To my dismay, the building is locked. Apparently Friday was the last day to remove your belongings from this building. I spend a few minutes mentally cursing the idiot who thought that was a good idea, but then I decide I'd better try to do something about the situation. Using cleverness, I'm able to reach the first of my two lockers, which contains a fairly new car battery. I've been switching this one in and out with my car's old battery. Only, it seems like doing the swap would be a fairly complicated operation, and I can't remember ever having done it before. Oh, well. I must have known how at some point, and it's just been so long that it's slipped my mind temporarily. It'll come back, I'm sure. I put the battery in my backpack.

Unfortunately, the second locker is definitely unreachable. I check the building's hours, and unfortunately it won't open again until long after I've left town. By that time, they'll probably have thrown out my stuff. "My stuff" includes my Tae Kwon Do uniform, so I definitely don't want this to happen. Then I suddenly notice a sign on the window proclaiming the location and hours of this department's interim office. It's open today! Until 4:00! I hurry in that direction, checking the time. It's 4:11. Just my luck. Well, maybe there will still be someone around. My mom hurries to follow me.

I enter my target building to find a stark concrete entryway with stairs going both up and down, and hallways going in a few different directions. For a moment I'm disoriented, until I remember that the interim office is in a basement room. I go down the stairs, which twist and turn a few times before depositing me in a hallway only slightly more furnished than the original one. Along the wall to my right, dozens of cardboard boxes have been haphazardly stacked. Incredulous at my good fortune, I run down the row of boxes until I find one that's been labeled with my initials: last initial first, then first. Opening the box, I find my Tae Kwon Do uniform, along with everything else that's supposed to be there. Well, that's a relief. But I should probably talk to someone before taking it, else they'll think I stole it, and I'll be in trouble when I come back next term.

I continue down the hallway into the interim meeting room, which is actually a concert hall. That's kind of funny, but unfortunately I don't see anyone in the room except a female custodian up on stage setting up the ghost light. I turn back and try searching the hall in the other direction. I manage to flag down a dark-haired woman just on her way out the door. She seems to know me from somewhere, and it turns out she's coincidentally the one who's been answering my questions over email about Study Abroad. She tells me she's not the one to talk to about locker checkout. Fortunately, she says that the right woman to talk to is still in her office; it's right back there in the direction I've been going.

Wading

It's the day after finals week, but some of us are still hanging around to hang out. A girl from my high school class invites me to visit the forest with a group of friends.

"What forest?" I ask. You'd think I'd know the forests around here by now, so I'm a bit embarrassed by my question. Oh well.

She replies with the name of the forest, which I don't recognize. I agree to come anyway, and we head out. Soon after, we enter a restaurant on the outskirts of campus. While we eat, some housemates start planning what they're going to do to earn points for a big school competition which started today. For instance, apparently this restaurant (or the hotel it's a part of) is a sponsor for the event, so you get a points multiplier for eating here. I wonder why it was decided to hold the event after the end of Autumn Quarter, when there are so few people around. Vaguely I recall that it has to do with avoiding conflict with a big Study Abroad event happening in the middle of Spring Quarter, but that still doesn't explain why they didn't decide to do it during Winter. Oh well.

We leave the restaurant. Most of the group is heading back to campus from here, but I take a different path, one that leads toward the forest. At some point, I'll have to cut across the grass. But the grass is actually flooded quite deeply with water. The water's clear, but due to refraction it's difficult for me to tell quite how deep it is. Would this be an okay place to wade across? Tentatively, I start lowering my foot into the water. But even by the time the water reaches the top of my knee-high waterproof boots, I still haven't touched bottom. I retract my foot.

My friends are calling to me from across the water, telling me to go around the way they did. Yeah, their way was probably smarter. Meanwhile a boy from the group that decided to stay on campus is trying to tell me not to wade across anywhere, because it's all too deep. But I don't listen to him, and when I try the route my other friends suggested, the water's only about a foot deep.

All three of us are in werewolf form (from Skyrim) with the silver pelt and claws of an Ancient Behemoth (from Heroes III). I splash up to them and I attempt a growl. It is rather feeble, and one of the girls giggles. I introduce myself to her, and she shakes my hand, although she points out that she thinks we've met before. "No doubt we have," I reply.

Jumping Ahead

My dad and I have been taking turns playing a 3-D platform game while one of my high school friends watches. The gameplay of this game is a lot like rock climbing. You have to move each arm or leg individually, trying not to put too much strain on any one of them for more than a split second. We're trying to get to the top of an outcrop that has a sort of half-enclosed tunnel zigzagging up its vertical face. There's this one tricky spot where you have to jump over a gap, but one of the most attractive handholds actually attaches to a section of rock that swings down on a hinge. It can really upset your balance if you're not careful. Also, in order to get enough height, you need this section of rock to stay in its upright position.

I try it for a while without much luck, then hand it over to Dad. My friend points out that we don't actually have to go up this way; there's an easier place to ascend a little bit farther along this switchback. But I'm kind of stubborn, and I'd just like to prove that it can be done this way, even if it's not what the game's designers intended. Unfortunately, it proves to be a bit too much for Dad, and he falls off the edge to his (cartoon-style) death. That means we have to start over from the beginning of the level, which is frustrating, because I really thought I would get past that section on my next try.

But Dad's bored of this level, so he jumps way ahead in the game to the last level he did on his own. That's his style: don't bother with continuity; as long as you finish all the levels eventually, you're golden. Oh, well. The level selection screen is itself a 3-D environment, and the levels are yellow dots lined up in a path laid out along the ground. He realizes that he needs to buy a new "computer," since he lost the old one when he fell. When he does, the dots change to yellow rings, rather than filled circles. Also, two new "assistants" run in from the side of the screen, get a powerup of some kind from his character, then run off again.

He selects the level he wants. A bunch of enemies start running at him from all sides, so he starts beating them up using combos. Somehow he discovers a new combo--something like "knee in the face, punch, power kick"--which sends the unfortunate recipient flying backwards for about fifty meters. He encourages me to try it, but I have trouble until I realize that I'm doing a regular kick. For a power kick you need to hold down R1 at the same time. I feel a bit overwhelmed, but it's kind of fun once you figure it out. The animation's also cool because my character looks like a Star Wars bounty hunter.

Later, we're part of a larger party in the middle of a battle, trying to help the weaker members level up. This involves passing around 5-foot playing cards from character to character, which we all hug to our sides using our arms. The cards also double as protection from enemy characters, so there's some strategy involved in how you distribute your cards. Unfortunately, I'm running low on cards right now, and a thickset, bald thug is advancing on me in a rather intimidating manner.

Frags:

• dictating to my dream diary in Spanish
• other various false-awakening-dream-journal-writing

Crocodile

I'm playing with a graphics editing program. I'm trying to make a realistic 3-D model of a tree. I've found some textures and random generation algorithms from various other sources, and I'm trying to see how well they can be combined. For example, the models for the fruit on the tree come from Skyrim. Now, I manage to generate a tree. But it's one of those strangler fig trees from the jungle, and the setting is just a basic North American backyard. Also, the branches sometimes have a weird orthogonal slant. I'm not sure exactly how to fix these problems, short of designing my own textures for a tree, and that would be very complicated. I also notice that there's a thin spot in the middle of the tree--not enough leaves there. I spend some time trying to make an extra branch and affix it manually. The patch looks okay from a distance, but when I enter the 3-D environment and rotate the tree by grabbing a branch and pulling it sideways, it's clear that the new branch doesn't quite connect to the rest of the tree. It's just floating in the air in the right general location.

I look over the white picket fence bordering the yard. My parents are visible through the glass doors of the next house. One house over, a big group of 9 or 10-year-old kids is having a pool party. And on the other side of the fence from the pool is a crocodile. Wait, what!? Sure enough, there's a live, fifteen-foot crocodile sort of hanging upside down off of the fence. I'm both terrified and excited by this. In any case I'm definitely going to stay up here in my tree. There's a guy crouching next to the crocodile, but I'm not worried for him. He's probably from animal control or something.

I call out to my parents. "Mom! Dad! Look, it's a crocodile!"

They open the glass door and come outside. "Oh, have they come to pick it up already?" my dad says. I guess they already knew the crocodile was here. Meanwhile, the kids at the pool party are still busy doing cannonballs from the diving board.

Suddenly, the crocodile snarls at my dad. He crouches, but he looks frantic and confused and there's nowhere to run. The crocodile lunges, and Dad trips backwards over a white plastic lawn chair, which falls between them. Then, to my horror, my mom jumps on the crocodile and tries to wrestle with it. "Shit!" I say, desperately. She should have run. I can't see exactly what's going on, because my mom's back is to me. I wonder if I should try to help, or if that would only get me killed as well. Then I see blood and bits of flesh spilling onto the patio. It must have gotten her neck. "Shit," I moan, overcome with horror at the fact that I'm watching someone die, and that someone is my mother. Somehow, I'm on the ground, and her body lands next to me. There's definitely something wrong with the shape of her neck, and there's blood all over. I wake up.

Math Seminar

I'm sitting in the audience for a math seminar. Absently, I look at the speaker for the first time in a while. It takes me a minute to realize that instead of Prof. S, the speaker is a very broad-shouldered man whom I don't know. He looks very strong, he's in shape, and he's not wearing a shirt. Huh. The man explains somewhat embarrassedly that he's advertising for a company whose logo appears on his shorts. Also, I guess he's the substitute teacher for the math seminar, and he's kind of hoping that we won't talk much about math, since he doesn't know much about it.

This is the second half-naked man I've seen in the math department today. I guess the female undergrads must be feeling pretty lucky. Anyway, after the seminar I walk onto the stage and see that the guy's not wearing shorts now, either, or underwear. He's picking up his clothes and getting ready to leave.

At some point later, I discover that I'm wearing only a T-shirt and underwear, and my shorts are around my ankles. I feel somewhat irrationally superior to the substitute speaker in that I decide to pull up my pants, instead of taking off my underwear like he must have done in the same situation. But I do recognize that I'm probably just jealous.

Math Book

One of my friends in the math department leads me into a side room where the floor is covered in dozens of packets of paper, printouts from various mathematical lectures and books. He hands me the printout of the last chapter of the book I've been working through. When I go back and add this chapter to the rest of the book, I take a moment to contemplate the book as a whole. It's in a very rough state: for example, after I add a couple of entries to the glossary at the back, I notice that some of the definitions end with commas, some with periods, and some with nothing. It will take some work to clean up, but I'm still proud of it. I think I understand a little better the essence of a math book. It's not all about the typesetting and the grammar--it's about the content, and content is what we have.

Piano Lesson

Three of us are sitting in a room, waiting. We're all musicians. A friend of ours is having a piano lesson in the next room. The two others decide to rehearse a tricky spot from the string quartet they'll be playing in the recital. I'm a bit uncomfortable with this, since I'm worried about the noise being heard in the next room. It looks like one of the older adults who's back here with us is about to come over and stop them, but then she decides it's unnecessary. I guess if she thinks it's okay, then I'd better not worry about it.

Frags:

• Playing a platform game of some kind.